Ringu Dreamworks (US) DVD Release

[Aaron Gerow]

>This brings up a good question for the editors out there re: the
>romanization of the film's title. I have seen arguments that since the
>original title is simply RING it should be written that way. Others prefer
>RINGU. Which way do we go?

Here's me spouting on about romanization again, but here's my rule as 
both a scholar and an editor (and it is also the rule at libraries, by 
the way). Romanization should reflect how the original title was written, 
using the various rules that exist for rendering Japanese into English 
letters (the modified-Hepburn system being the dominant one). The problem 
with dealing with words that are originally English but have been 
rendered into Japanese (using katakana) is that there is a temptation 
just to use the original English when romanizing. That, I believe, is an 
inaccurate method because it ignores the way the title was written 
originally. 

For instance, there is the Love Letter problem. Iwai Shunji's Love Letter 
is of course a famous film with this title and its release title in Japan 
uses the English letters. However, there is also the 1998 Morisaki Azuma 
film called Love Letter, but it uses the katakana to render the title. To 
romanize the latter using "Love Letter" is to ignore the fact that there 
is a big difference between the titles of this film and Iwai's. Thus, to 
be accurate, you must render it Rabu reta (ideally with a macron over the 
last a). That is how any library in the US would render this film in its 
catalog. Ring is the same and thus ideally should be rendered Ringu. 

It is a disservice to readers/users if you render Morisaki's film "Love 
Letter" because you are making it more difficult for them to imagine the 
Japanese title if they need to by inserting an illegitimate step into the 
romanization process (not just romanizing the title, but "correcting" it 
into proper English spelling).

There is a problem, as has been discussed before on the list, regarding 
whether the original title is in katakana or English letters. With some 
recent films, you see both on advertisements, so it's hard to tell which 
is supposed to be the original. Sometimes it seems the two versions are 
both supposed to be the title (thus Nakata's film Chaos is rendered on 
the JMDB as "Kaos chaos" and Kurosawa's Cure as "CURE/Kyua"). Sometimes, 
the katakana is there just to help people pronounce the English title 
that is the real original title. Sometimes you just don't know!

This can also be a problem with names. Do you render it Taguchi Tommorow, 
as he seems to like, or more accurately as Taguchi Tomoro? Matsuoka 
George or Matsuoka Joji? Shishido Joe or Shishido Jo? The former are all 
inaccurate for the above reasons and especially people making databases 
or working for libraries/archives should avoid those. But if the person 
him or herself prefers that romanization, shouldn't we allow that? Maybe, 
perhaps in the popular press, but in scholarly or archive work, we should 
keep to accurately representing how it is in Japanese (perhaps adding a 
footnote or a subheading noting alternative renderings). Remember that 
recent publicists in Japan often have really little idea what 
romanization rules are and are throwing out horrible romanizations of 
actors and staff names that then get used on the IMDB and other places 
(which means there are a number of Japanese actors on the IMDB who are 
listed as different people because the romanization was rendered 
differently). Just because it is rendered that way in the English 
publicity materials doesn't make it correct (especially since the 
publicity itself is often mistaken in other areas). Unfortunately, "Kudou 
Youki" seems to have stuck (I cringe whenever I see it), even though no 
one in the world writes Ozu Yasujirou, Ohshima Nagisa, or Masumura 
Yasuzou (or some other horrid rendering). Even Ichiro had the sense not 
to do it Ichirou or Ichiroh. These inconsistencies can be annoying.

Forgive me again for the diatribe, but knowing and sticking to the rules 
avoids confusion and saves people a lot of trouble. We who write and 
teach about Japanese film have to be more responsible about this.

Aaron Gerow
Yokohama National University
KineJapan list owner
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